Mizoram to keep strict vigil on Assam border

Silchar, May 9: Mizoram’s chief secretary L. Tochhawng today said tight vigil would continue along its contentious boundary with Assam.

Tochhawng has yesterday reviewed the steps taken by the administration of Kolosib district, which shares a boundary with Assam’s Hailakandi district.

Four farmhouses at Bunchangphai Ramthar village were dismantled by goons in Mizoram on April 27.

Kolosib district deputy commissioner Jitender Yadav briefed the chief secretary about his meeting with his counterpart in Hailakandi district, Shamser Singh, in Hailakandi on April 30 which was attended by officials of civil administration, police and forest of both the districts in an urgent measure to curb the brewing tension and bring back the much needed normality in both the states.

The border parleys reached a consensus that in future both the states would refrain from undertaking any construction activity, clearing of forests and cutting of soil in the disputed border areas.

Tochhawng today said she had instructed Yadav not to slacken vigil by Mizoram police and security personnel along the border areas in Hailakandi, 80km northwest of this town, and make another visit to the border areas.

Mizoram police sources in Aizawl today confirmed that three platoons of the first battalion of India Reserve Police, posted near Ramthar habitat, would continue their patrol along the disputed border.

An Aizawl-based NGO, Zofa Welfare Organisation, in a memorandum sent to the Union home secretary and the Mizoram chief secretary, has demanded “stringent punishment” to Hailakandi deputy commissioner for “his involvement” in the demolition of the four houses.

The Assam-Mizoram border conflict can be traced back to the British days when the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation was enacted in 1872 and amended by the chief secretary of Assam government W. S. Cosgrave in 1933 to ward off movements and incursions by the Lushai and Kuki tribals into the undivided Cachar district.